DALY: Redskins rising from the ashes in two wins, five days

ARLINGTON, Texas — There have been pitfalls and potholes and assorted other stumbling blocks this season for the Washington Redskins. But here they are, with five games to go, and all of their goals are still within reach.

Five days. That’s all it took to change the course of a season, one that looked headed for the breakdown lane after a home loss to lowly Carolina had left the Redskins at 3-6. But sometimes Bye Week heals all wounds — or something like that. The Redskins returned from their R and R, got Pierre Garcon and his troublesome foot back in the lineup and started playing their best ball of the year … at a time when they had to play their best ball of the year. If they wanted their year to extend into January, that is.

Now they’re 5-6 and have 11 days to steel themselves for a Monday-night matchup against the division-leading Giants (6-4), a club they had on the ropes the first time around. (I’ll spare you a recap.) Win the rematch, extend their winning streak to three (for the first time in the Mike Shanahan Era) and the playoffs become even more real for the Redskins.

At that point, they’ll be the hot team with the hot quarterback, and who wouldn’t want to be in that position? I’m referring, of course, to Robert Griffin III, who posted a perfect passer rating (158.3) against the Eagles and, in his Texas homecoming, lit up the Cowboys for 311 yards and four touchdowns through the air.

In so doing, he summoned memories of another Heisman Trophy winner from hereabouts, Earl Campbell. Thirty-three years ago, in his first pro game in Dallas, Campbell, the Texas Longhorn-turned-Houston Oiler, helped spoil Thanksgiving for the Cowboys by rushing for 195 yards, including TDs of 61 and 27. Griffin, pride of Baylor and Copperas Cove, was every bit as spectacular Thursday; by halftime, he had the dispirited crowd chanting his name and booing the home club.

Some players, the special ones, do these kinds of things when the TV lights are brightest. And as regular-season games go, there aren’t many bigger stages than Thanksgiving at Cowboys Stadium. But as he keeps showing, RG3 is completely comfortable in such surroundings. Indeed, he seems to live for such moments. The greater the scrutiny, the better he plays.

And he needed to against Dallas, because his teammates didn’t exactly come out and set the tone in the first quarter. They started sluggishly on offense — dropped a pass, didn’t protect the quarterback very well — and on defense allowed the Cowboys to drive for a chip-shot field goal in their opening series.

Two plays into the second quarter, though, Griffin took matters into his own hands. On first-and-15, off a shotgun snap, he arched a 68-yard rainbow of touchdown pass to wide-open Aldrick Robinson to make it 7-3. Then Dallas began turning the ball over — and more Redskins TDs followed. A Dez Bryant fumble led to a 1-yard score by Alfred Morris. A Tony Romo interception with 30 seconds left in the half paved the way for a 6-yard TD flip to Santana Moss. In between, RG3 threw for another score, a 59-yarder to Garcon that, admittedly, was more Garcon than RG3.

(Just a terrific grab of a pass that was behind him — and an equally terrific run afterward, particularly given his injury. “The turf wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” he said. “We put a lot of cushioning inside the shoe to make the pain to away as much as possible. … I [also] had a lot of adrenaline going tonight. That helped the pain go away a little bit,” too.)

Add it all up and you get Redskins 28, Cowboys 3 — 28 Washington points in a single quarter. The only bigger quarter in Redskins history is the 35-point haymaker Doug Williams laid on Denver in Super Bowl XXII. That, too, came in the second quarter.

As Griffin put it, “We were showing not just ourselves and the Cowboys but everybody what we’re capable of.”

To which Kory Lichtensteiger added: “That’s something we’ve got to keep working on — not having these big chunks of the game where we’re struggling. Fortunately, we’ve got Pierre back, and Aldrick is playing great. It’s pretty cool.”

The second half, at the outset, had all the makings of a clock-killing drill. The Cowboys quickened pulses for a moment or two when Bryant broke loose for an 85-yard touchdown late in the third quarter; that made it 28-13. But Griffin wasted little time returning the favor, leading a long drive on the next possession that ended with a 29-yard TD pass to Niles Paul, the latter’s first NFL score.

About the Author

Dan Daly has been writing about sports for the Washington Times since 1982. He has won numerous national and local awards, appears regularly in NFL Films’ historical features and is the co-author of “The Pro Football Chronicle,” a decade-by-decade history of the game. Follow Dan on Twitter at @dandalyonsports –- or e-mail him at ddaly@washingtontimes.com.